I've set up this blog as a place to tell stories about OSG Operations. These stories may include interesting events, technical problems that have led to important lessons learned, or anything about OSG Operations that may tend itself toward interesting telling. Contributor will consist of all OSG Operations personnel at the various institutions were OSG houses Operational Services.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Rob and Scott go to CERN and EGI Technical Forum

Early in the afternoon of 15th of September Rob Quick and I set off for Geneva to visit our collaborators at CERN and attend the European Grid Initiative (EGI) technical forum. We arrived without difficulty at 7:55 AM on the 16th and decided to get the paperwork needed to become CERN users completed. Paperwork being what it is, this turned out to consume the entire day. Many thanks are due to David Collados who picked us up and at days end delivered us to our hotel.

We used Saturday to adjust our clocks by six timezones, working the entire day before actually helped. We hopped a bus to Ferney just across the border in France. There was an open air market where I bought some olives, bread, beer and goat cheese. Turns out David lives near the market and he and his wife gave us a ride back to Geneva. We visited the UN and gorged ourselves of fondue at a small local restaurant. Later in the evening Rob and I made dinner of my Ferney purchase.

On Sunday we hopped a train to Lyon, France for the EGI conference. Quite an enjoyable trip through the mountains. Our talks were on Monday and we learned some interesting things and met many people we knew only by e-mail or con-call. Wednesday was a dinner at a Paul Bocuse restaurant featuring a dessert that made quite the impression on both of us. Raspberries, Chocolate Mousse and Ice Cream. On Friday we knocked off early and did tourist things by visiting the Roman ruins near the confluence of the Saone and Rhone rivers. Those folks built to last. Saturday was back on the train to Geneva.

On Sunday we visited the old part of Geneva. As far as I could tell, old was defined as being contained within the original city walls. I ate a huge bucket of Mussels cooked in white wine, garlic and saffron. Rob had perch and we both had fries, bread and beer. Three days of very productive meetings with our CERN counterparts then back home Thursday at noon. We had a bit of a delay between Washington and Indianapolis but nothing serious.

We both needed Friday to recover, Saturday I started catching up on chores neglected in my absence. Monday I will do the same at work. All in all, a productive if tiring trip.